Coronavirus hits the hotel industry hard

BERLIN - March 17, 2020 - PRLog -- Since 1 March 2020, hotel occupancy in Germany has decreased by more than 36% year-on-year as shown by the analyses of market research companies STR and Fairmas. In addition to air transport, logistics, trade fair organizers, tourism service providers, cultural institutions and domestic industry, the hotel industry in particular is struggling with dramatic declines in sales.

Throughout Germany, hotel room revenues are shrinking by more than 42%. Cologne has been hit the hardest - more than 2/3 of revenues have been lost due to postponements of trade fairs and canceled business trips compared to Mar 2019. Frankfurt's drop in sales is at -62%. These drastic losses have a particularly precarious effect on the overall economic situation of the city's hotel industry. A March without Easter holidays has an above-average share in the annual financial balance of city hotels due to the high proportion of trade fairs and congresses. To date, while business, group and event travel have been mainly affected, private travel is now also showing a massive decline.

"We assume that the bottom has not been reached yet. In the first few days of March, the hotels still had comparatively good levels of advanced bookings. Due to event cancellations and travel warnings, the booking situation is worsening with each passing day and even greater declines are to be expected," states Niels Schroeder, Managing Director of Fairmas GmbH.

Internationally, the corona crisis is leading to major distortions for the industry. STR sees massive slumps for the entire European hotel market. Demand in many countries has already been falling since February. Italian cities such as Rome are particularly affected with a current 6% occupancy rate. London is still the most stable with around 47% occupancy rate.

"The effects of the corona crisis are having an enormous impact on the entire European hotel market. Currently, city destinations and winter travel destinations are mainly affected. An extension of the current situation over time would lead to further aggravation of the situation in the typical holiday regions," says Robin Rossmann, Managing Director of STR.

The surveys conducted by STR and Fairmas are based on long term, mainly automated daily data transmission from the hotel systems. The figures collected by the cooperation partners thus reflect the actual business development of over 1,700 hotels in Germany and 13,000 hotels in Europe.

STR is a leading global provider of performance benchmarking and market analysis for the hotel industry. Visit str.com and costargroup.com for more information.

Fairmas GmbH develops software solutions with a focus on financial planning and management reporting for the hotel industry. Visit https://fairmas.com/en/ for more information.